Tuesday, September 18, 2007

"A ravishing, magisterial, poetic epic that moves its characters toward their tragic destinies with all the implacability of a Greek drama, 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' is one of the best Westerns of the 1970s, which represents the highest possible praise. It's a magnificent throwback to a time when filmmakers found all sorts of ways to refashion Hollywood's oldest and most durable genre." (Variety)

"f, several decades from now, anthropologists set out to locate the spiritual hub of early twenty-first-century Washington, they could do worse than the Caucus Room, that bunker of a steakhouse across from the FBI building downtown. Founded seven years ago by a bipartisan klatch of moneymen and influence-peddlers--among them, famed lobbyist Tommy Boggs, Bush-family henchman C. Boyden Gray, and Clinton fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe--the restaurant caters to the bland appetites and bulging egos of Washington's expense-account elite ... Even the restaurant's jokes are inside. There is, for example, the Caucus Room's 'Haley's Chopped Salad.' This is a bowl of greens topped with mustard vinaigrette and Maytag blue cheese. It is named after another one of the restaurant's owners--former Republican lobbyist and current Mississippi governor Haley Barbour--who, judging from his ample jowls and girth, wouldn't know a salad if it were." (TNR)

"US and Indian military sources say that, if successful, the twin launch by the same Polaris/TecSat vehicle Sept. 17-20 will add Israel to the few nations with imaging radar reconnaissance satellites able to distinguish camouflaged vehicles from rocky terrain – by night and through foliage. The Israeli military satellite will lift off along with India’s first military recon spacecraft, Cartosat 2A. They will be fired in an approximately 600-km polar orbit atop the same Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from an island in the Bay of Bengal. The data-gathering features of Polaris 1 are especially pertinent for a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities." (Debka)

"After opening with Julian Schnabel's 'The Diving Bell and The Butterfly' on October 10th, the 2007 Woodstock Film Festival will close on October 14th with Todd Haynes' 'I'm Not There,' the festival announced today (Tuesday)." (Indiewire)